Omen 6.9

2001, December 22: Sahara Desert, Africa

My new armor drew more than a few glances in the Madhouse. Other than the coat, it was vaguely similar enough to Winter's Approach that I tried to pass it off as something I'd been working on intermittently, but I could tell I wasn't fooling anyone. It was abundantly clear to my cohorts that I was building outside the lab.

A home lab wasn't a good excuse given my Ward status, but no one cared to make an issue of it when Eugene and Rebecca stepped in to reinforce the claim. I could only thank the lacking tinker-related regulations. Somehow, I doubted that Kid Win would be permitted a home lab in 2011.

Still, I sure as hell couldn't test out my new armor in DC.

"I was under the impression that you loathed the heat," came Rebecca's dry remark. "You complained enough in DC."

"I can stand the temperature; it's the humidity that pisses me off. Arid heat's fine."

Rebecca hovered next to me as I stood on a cloud beneath my feet. She was in her full Alexandria getup, intimidating blacked out helmet included. I remembered giving her an Elixir of Rejuvenation once I proved I could implant eyes and more. I thought that it was what really set us on the path to being more than colleagues. She wore a backpack filled with both mundane and tinkertech gadgets.

'Friends. With Alexandria,' I mused a sardonic smile on my lips. I could practically taste the salt of the collective Worm fandom at the notion.

"Why are we here, Andy?"

"I need to test out what this armor can do," I told her. "And maybe come up with a name for it. I was thinking Fimbulwinter, but it doesn't sound right to me."

"The last winter before Ragnarok?"

I raised a brow at that. "You read the Eddas?"

"Once, back before Cauldron," she shrugged. "You can only do so much from a hospital bed and I used to love stories of ancient heroes. When I recovered, I went back and reread everything I ever touched."

"To remember?"

"Indeed. None of it's useful, but they remind me of who Rebecca was before she became Alexandria."

I hopped down to the ground and smiled as a tan serpent rapidly hid beneath the sand. It was good to remember that even the chrono-static woman had hidden depths. "Rebecca sounds like an interesting person," I told her. "You should let her out more often."

"Perhaps. The reference is poetic, possibly even pertinent given our ultimate mission, but it doesn't suit your theme. How does Polaris sound?" I made a face at that. "No? I'll have Powell's team workshop it."

"Nope. No. No way in hell. Keep his grubby paws off my IP."

"Then don't name it at all. It's just a costume."

I let out a mock gasp. "It's just a- Do you hear yourself?"

She let out an exaggerated sigh. "Do what you want, but let's get on with this. I'm a busy woman, Andy. For that matter, so are you."

"A busy woman?" I grinned at the dirty look she shot me. "Fine, fine. This armor. It has an ability that lets me create an arctic storm around myself. The storm is so powerful that it can shatter steel through the temperature difference alone. In fact, I'm pretty sure laser weapons would just fizzle out because the storm would instantly rob it of all heat. The idea is for it to drain an area of all heat then use said energy to permanently power a forcefield around myself, a forcefield that regenerates constantly so long as there is someone or something in the radius that is hotter than the storm's ambient temperature."

"You want me to test the ability."

"Yup. You're the person least likely to die. But just in case, fly out a few miles and approach. Use a rangefinder to figure out the radius of the storm, then Eugene's old pistol to see how lasers react inside it. Then, assuming you're not affected, come closer until you rejoin me or start getting frostbite."

"The cold doesn't bother me," she scoffed.

I wagged a finger her way. "You say that now, Elsa, but if there's any ice magic that can make you eat your words, it's this one."

"Tinkertech isn't magic."

"Sure, and Manton's a well-adjusted man with zero hang-ups whatsoever. Now shoo. Didn't you say you were busy?" She shot me an admonishing glare but flew off anyway. The sonic boom she left behind sent sand everywhere. I grumbled as I dusted the sand from my hair. "Bitch."

A minute later, my communicator blared to life. "Ready?"

"Ready. How far are you right now?"

"Fourteen miles out."

"What happened to 'Cold doesn't bother me anyway?'"

"You seemed serious."

I grinned. "So I am. Starting in five."

"Understood."

My connection to the as of yet unnamed armor was similar to my connection to Isolde. Even when it wasn't active, I could feel a tether between it and the World Rune, a valve that I could twist open at any moment to power its enchantments. I reached out for the connection and paused. I could feel the magic pulsing, baying like a hound set to be released, and I immediately noticed a problem.

It was too strong.

Anivia's blessing effectively let me use her authority over ice and wind in a localized area, but this was an authority that far superseded my own. Without my armor, I could make a few compact snowballs, maybe an icicle shiv or a handful of throwing knives. With Winter's Approach, I was effectively a tactile cryokinetic who could create and mold ice in my immediate vicinity.

I jumped from that, to "I made a hailstorm that lasted a century."

The mana that flowed into the armor surged like a tidal wave. If tapping into the World Rune normally felt like drawing a bowl of water from a well, this was akin to switching on a water drill rated for diamonds. It felt like I had collared and mounted a typhoon. So great was the magic of the Firstborn that it overwhelmed my protections, leaving me with an uncomfortable chill. I doubted even I could keep this up forever.

I did my best to take stock of my surroundings. My armor was completely covered in hoarfrost now, making it look like it had gained a crystalline outer layer.

Hurricane-force winds ripped through the desert, kicking up a whirlwind of sand and ice with enough force to strip flesh from bone. It was not lost on me that in the arid environment, creating this much ice shouldn't have been possible. I chalked it up to Anivia's bullshit magic.

Not fifty feet away, I spied a cactus literally shatter into dust, its stored water frozen and ground apart by the sand and ice crystals carried upon the wind. In seconds, enough of the sand was kicked up to expose what few animals called this place home. Every last one of them had flash-frozen to death the moment I activated Anivia's blessing and granular chunks of wildlife joined the hailstorm orbiting me.

I stood in the eye of the storm, lightly shivering as the Sahara Desert experienced its first introduction to Anivia's frost. I patted myself down. Lucky for me, everything that I owned was untouched. I pulled out the communicator. It was designed by Eugene to be able to contact Cauldron operatives across dimensions, something about higher-dimensional wavelengths and sympathetic subatomic motion that flew over my head. As cold as it was, a simple storm wouldn't be enough to hamper the device.

"Becky, can you hear me?"

"I can," she replied. "Have you moved from your starting location?"

"No."

"Then it seems the storm has a radius of slightly less than three miles, remarkably small for a storm and nothing like a supercell."

"Well, sorry my best defense is merely a city-wiping storm. I'll shoot for half a continent next time," I shot back.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

She gamely ignored my snark and pressed on. "Doing a flyover now. Have you noticed that your storm has no eye?"

"It does… kind of. It's more like a marble than a column of calm air though. This storm is a dome around my person so the area I'm occupying is quite peaceful. It takes heat from an area and empowers a forcefield around me."

"How big is this forcefield?"

I did some quick napkin math. "Five feet or so in any direction. I think I can draw it in though to close the gap."

"So you could protect someone?"

"Maybe. Everything around me died from the initial release. Pretty sure that's a piece of some rodent skull that just flew by… If someone teleported to my side right now, they'd be safe until I withdrew the forcefield or kicked them out of it."

"Pity. It's as you suspected. Lasers don't travel more than three feet in the area of your storm. It's as though something is increasing the rate of dispersion of light."

"Just roll with it. The storm is cold. Ergo nothing hot can exist in its domain."

"Very well. I'm going to try entering the storm now." I heard nothing back for several seconds. "No change. I seem to be immune."

There was some satisfaction in her voice, though I supposed it was deserved. Literally anyone else, including the rest of the Founders, would have died. Keith could turn to light to mitigate damage, but that sounded like a horrible idea given what Anivia's storm did to Eugene's laser. He might be able to escape if he pulls out all the stops and focuses on flying out of the area of effect. Eugene and David wouldn't be able to approach at all unless they teched specifically for it.

I suspected that Rebecca's separate-dimension-but-not-really power was protecting her from the ice. Several seconds later, I saw her enter my visual range. She landed in the eye soon after.

"You can still fight in this, right?" I asked. "If I were to counter Behemoth's killing aura with this…"

"Impractical," she shot me down. "I don't think this does anything against radiation, unless you know different?"

"No, you're right."

"Even if it did, I had trouble breathing in that storm. The air pressure is too great and it was a struggle just to see where I was going."

"Shit. It's not like I want to depopulate a city every time I use this either."

"Can you control it? Underpower it somehow?"

I nodded, rubbing my arms to keep warm. "Yeah, but it'll take time. I'm hoping that I can make it selective. Get it to ignore allies."

"Is that possible?"

"Yeah." I gestured to the Ymelo. "It seems to ignore things I own."

"Work on learning to control your armor as a high priority."

"You don't have to tell me. I'm going to kick you out of my field now. Try to punch through?"

"Understood."

Making the eye constrict around me took barely any effort at all, probably because I had been focused on the concept of protection when I made it. Once she was out of the sphere, I nodded.

Rebecca drew her fist back and punched. I felt nothing. Shrugging, she flew up and began to throw herself against the forcefield. Wherever she struck, fractals of mana formed snowflake-like patterns, only to disperse rapidly. I grinned at that. By this point, everything in the area besides Rebecca herself was dead. If she was unaffected by the cold, it stood to reason that she wasn't contributing any heat either. And that meant that the energy that kept replenishing this shield had to come from somewhere.

"The sun," I whispered. The World Rune kept the storm active, which in turn drained all heat in an area, sunlight included. It certainly explained why the world looked to be in grayscale. Before long, Rebecca began to tap her nose. "Oh, right. Breath."

Letting the storm disperse was as simple as cutting off the fuel.

When the winds died down and we could hear each other normally again, there was clear satisfaction in her voice. "That is a very sturdy forcefield."

"It is. It's too bad that control's so difficult."

"That just means you have something worth mastering."

"Yeah, thanks for helping me test this."

"You're welcome." She opened a Door back to Earth-Bet to her private quarters so she could change back into a business suit. She looked back. "And Andy? Welcome to the big leagues."

X

When I returned home, it was to find an email from Penelope.

Andy,

You weren't picking up, so I decided to send an email.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou!

I got your birthday gift this morning and they're awesome! Here's a pic. Jazz calls me Fat Hands now but whatevs. She's super jelly and she says she expects something equally badass. How'd you get them to fit my hands though?

I kind of feel bad because the scarf I sent you looks kind of lame next to freaking tinkertech boxing gauntlets.

I'll be stuck in power testing for the next few days, but so worth.

Thanks again,

Penelope

PS: Sorry you missed out on movie night. It's your turn to pick one next week.

I smiled at that. Even from a letter, Penny's good cheer was infectious. I scrolled down to find three more emails from my friends, wishing me happy holidays and giving me a wish list of their own for any tinkertech devices in the future.

Alongside their emails was one I hadn't expected but should have. "Of course Director Lyons wants to chat," I muttered.

Hyunmu,

It has come to my attention that you still keep in contact with your old Wards team. While I'm glad you five have formed such strong friendships, I am somewhat concerned about just what gets shared over your weekly movie nights.

Particularly, note that it is in no way appropriate to send fully operational tinkertech devices over the mail. No matter how well they augment Stingray's abilities, gauntlets capable of crumpling vault doors like aluminum foil are not appropriate Christmas gifts. I do not care that it included a biometric lock requiring a blood sample. That was highly irresponsible and Chief Director Costa-Brown has been notified.

Don't get me wrong. I'm delighted that you think so highly of Stingray and admire your faith in the integrity of our postal service, but your gift has kicked over the hornet's nest here in Phoenix. I have been approached by four different heroes wanting tinkertech loadouts of their own. Both the research and PR departments will be quite busy over the holidays because of you.

I'm halfway tempted to allow Gyroscope to dismantle your gauntlets to study them.

I'd tell you to reflect, but knowing you, you consider the above chaos a badge of honor.

Regardless of your disposition, you are to let me know if and when you intend to provide any of my team with tinkertech. You no doubt intend to gift Hat Trick and Masked Bandit with similar devices.

Better yet, I'd appreciate it if you hold off on doing so until the girls graduate from the Wards. It is much more difficult to overhaul their image while they are Wards and if we time their graduation, we can claim their graduation is the cause for such changes.

If that does not convince you, know that I fear giving Wards powerful weapons. While both Hat Trick and Masked Bandit are mature young ladies, I worry that possessing powerful tinkertech will give them a confidence they do not deserve. They may seek out conflict they are unprepared for. You know the gangs here are not kind to isolated Wards.

Respectfully,

Amelia Lyons

Director of the PRT

prt_phoenix .gov

PS: I have contacted Director Keller Watson in Albuquerque as I know you are most likely to make something for Ranchero. You can be his headache.

PPS: Regardless of this mistake, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your continued potions supply. They have given the Phoenix PRT a reputation for being one of the best-prepared departments in the country.

PPPS: Know that I am wholly committed to taking in as many refugees as possible in your Worldstone Network project should the worst come to pass. The mayor is a politician through and through and is unaware of your connection to Rubedo, but I will continue to pressure him as I am able.

I sat back. I wasn't expecting a letter of that length from my former director. From what I recalled, Director Lyons rose up from the ranks as a researcher first before hanging up her white coat for an administrative role. I remembered her as a fair and responsible woman, if perhaps a little inexperienced in the law enforcement side of things.

Her threat of letting Gyroscope dismantle the Atlas Gauntlets was uncalled for, but she did have a point. As much as I wanted to kit Jazz and Raq in some of my best works, it might make them look for fights to "test the goods." I sent back an email apologizing and promising not to make them anything without at least giving her a heads up soon.

I then sent an email back to the group letting them know that Ranchero was next by seniority and that I was expected to speak with Director Watson first.

The door to my room opened and mom stepped inside with a plate of yakgwa and barley tea. She set them down and ruffled my hair. I scrunched my nose at the drink but made no comment of it.

"What are you doing, son?" she asked with a smile

"Just writing some emails to Phoenix."

"Good. It's good to stay in touch with friends. Thank them for their Christmas gifts."

"Yes, mother."

"And when you're done eating, bring the plate down."

"Of course, mother." I picked up a yakgwa, a traditional Korean honey cookie mom picked up in Annandale, and bit into it. I savored the mildly sweet flavor and the crunch of toasted pine nuts. "Mmm, these are good."

"I know, right? An unni at the bank makes them for fun. She gave everyone a tray."

"Nice, can I get the recipe?"

"I'll ask when I see her after New Year's. Don't stay up too late."

"I won't, mom."

Author's Note

I think I briefly mentioned somewhere that Alexandria can be affected by potions. It came up in a chat about what it'd take to de-power her via Petricite I think. Like other breaker effects, drinking the Petricite Elixir would be enough. I considered making her immune outright, but that didn't seem right seeing how she needs to breathe and all.

It's kind of funny how big the jump in power is with Worm. You have characters who can maybe devastate a few city blocks like Kaiser and then immediately leap from that to characters who can wipe out said cities in a whim like the Triumvirate. I think most people forget just how large the Indian subcontinent is and what kind of force it'd take to blow it up as Behemoth's death did in canon.

In context, Andy's two-mile range on his mass accelerator and six miles of ice-based kill aura isn't much. But, he is finally a "city-buster" as much as I hate battleboarding terms.

Jinx calls Vi "Fat Hands" in League. I thought it was a cute add-in and fit Yasmine's character.

"Unni" means "older sister" but can be used to refer to a close acquaintance or friend. Even adults often address their seniors as unni or hyung in Korea.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.